


Twice

by emungere



Series: Ask [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bad BDSM Etiquette, Dom/sub, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:31:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What if I wanted-- No, that's not how it works. Take your clothes off and bring me my riding crop. It's in my room, bottom drawer of the dresser."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: sexualized violence, whipping.
> 
> Many thanks to louiselux for betaing and putting up with my endless whinging over this story.

The case lasted almost a week, and it took a week after that for Sherlock to get seriously bored.

That was when he hit John.

John walked out of the bright kitchen into the unlit living room, and the blow came out of nowhere, glancing, but with obvious intent behind it. He had Sherlock pinned under him on the floor in perhaps three seconds, fist pulled back and loaded, assessing danger--until he realized there was none.

"Shit, sorry. Sorry! Oh, god."

He sat back onto Sherlock's thighs and rubbed his hands together. He didn't know where to put them now that they weren't needed for violence. Sherlock looked up at him with something not quite a smile hovering around his mouth.

"Sorry for defending yourself?" he said.

John nodded.

Sherlock slapped him hard across the face. It stung. Sherlock studied him.

"What if I wanted-- No, that's not how it works. Take your clothes off and bring me my riding crop. It's in my room, bottom drawer of the dresser."

John got to his feet and felt very much as if he'd been pulled there by strings. Jerky, out of control movements. Detached from his body. His heart pounded, but his breathing was calm. He left his clothes, all of them, on the living room floor.

The riding crop had good bend to it, a solid smack when John brought it down on his palm. It would hurt.

Sherlock was still lying on the floor when John came back. He held out his hand, and John gave him the crop.

"Stand by the window. Put your hands on the glass."

Now John's breath caught. "People will see."

"Unlikely. Dark outside, dark in here, streetlights glaring in their eyes if they look up. I realize it's difficult when you're in this state, but do try to use some logic."

John looked at the window. He could see one lit window in the flat across the street.

Sherlock's mouth twitched briefly into a smile. "Yes, well. A considerably smaller audience than you'd find at a crime scene."

"That was only a stupid fantasy! Fantasies aren't real, that's the whole point of them!"

"And you will note I have not asked you to suck my cock in front of Lestrade, a selection of his halfwits, and a fresh corpse. You would, you know. If I asked."

"I wouldn't," John mumbled. He failed to convince even himself, although surely he wouldn't really? But Sherlock would never ask. Sherlock had better things to do at crime scenes, more interesting things than John to consider. (Except he had still thought of John, last time. That had never happened before.)

"The window. Now."

Sherlock sounded almost bored, and that shouldn't send a hot little wire shooting through John's chest, but it did. He was sure (almost sure) that Sherlock did care about him, in some unique and peculiar way, but he had other fantasies, worse ones, where Sherlock didn't care at all. Sherlock beat him bloody in some of those. The current convergence of fantasy and reality was making his stomach twist even as his cock thickened.

He crossed the room and planted his hands on the cold glass. It was only a little after eight. Still plenty of people on the pavement below. No one looked up. Likely no one would. Unless someone spotted him, pointed him out, and then everyone would look up, and here he was naked and hard and standing in the window like some cheap flasher who'd forgot his trench coat, and probably _recognizable_ if anyone knew him to recognize, not so terribly unlikely in this neighborhood, oh _god_ , he was going to lose his mind.

"Stop it," Sherlock said.

"I'm just standing here," John said, through his teeth.

Retreating footsteps, a pause, the rip of fabric. John looked over his shoulder.

"Sherlock! That's my shirt!"

"I'll get you a new one, do shut up."

Sherlock crossed the room and tied the sleeve of John's shirt, now liberated from the rest of it, over his eyes.

"There. Now you won't know. Maybe that woman across the way is watching you right now, or maybe she's having a bath and she'll miss the whole thing. Maybe you've got an audience down on the pavement this second. Maybe you haven't. It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters, dammit, _Sherlock_."

"I mean it won't affect your behavior. You can't back out if someone does notice."

And it kept him strung tight under the constant tension of _not knowing_. Sherlock was undoubtedly aware of that, too.

The riding crop came down on his back with absolutely no warning, top of his bad shoulder and down diagonally, leather tip catching at his shoulder blade. It did hurt, though not quite as much as he'd estimated.

It was funny how clearly he could feel the leather tip, how clearly it _was_ leather. He swore he could smell it as it heated up via friction with air and his skin. It cut into him every four or five strokes, when Sherlock shifted his grip and turned it just a fraction. The cuts were brighter stripes of pain over a base layer of ache and heat.

He'd been in more pain in his life. Quite a lot more pain. So, logically, it wasn't the pain that left him feeling hot and shaky, that made his cock so hard that it left sticky trails on the window glass. It would be so much simpler if it were the pain.

John opened his eyes behind the blindfold and saw nothing but a faint glow. The streetlights, he thought. They were so close like this. If not for the glass, he could almost touch them. The people were almost as close. He let his mind drift, imagined doing this on the ground floor, lights on, displayed.

An especially hard strike across the backs of his thighs made him gasp.

"You're not paying attention, John. Remember where you are."

"I know where I am," he said.

"There she is," Sherlock murmured. "Framed in the window across the way. Not looking yet."

John stiffened. "Sherlock--"

"Too late. She's watering her plants, and she's seen you now. She's staring. I can't blame her. You are quite a sight."

The blows came harder, quicker, in a rhythm that felt familiar. Perhaps something Sherlock played on the violin.

"Press your cock against the glass," Sherlock said.

John put a hand to his mouth and bit his knuckles.

"She's watching, John. Don't disappoint her."

 _I can't_ , he wanted to say. But he knew very well he could. He transferred one hand to the window frame and canted his hips forward. He shivered as he swayed closer, as his cock slid into the trap between hard, cold glass and his overheated skin. He could feel the smears he'd left there already. He could feel the incessant strike of the riding crop on his back and thighs. He could feel, maybe, a bit of wetness from some of the wounds. Sticky and tacky and hot, like his pre-come on the window.

"Do you think she'll call the police?" Sherlock said. "She's only watching for now. No phone. Spread your legs."

John did. Sherlock's hands took his hips, and Sherlock's body pressed in behind him, all along him, all heat and fine fabric catching against his welts and cuts. Sherlock jammed him up against the window, thrust against him so his cock rubbed in long, slick slides against the glass.

John opened his mouth for more air and moaned. Sherlock shoved his hips forward again, and John's breath caught, hitched, and came out hard from his throat. It was an exhalation pushed out by the trap he was caught in, between Sherlock and the world, with Sherlock rubbing against all his hidden wounds as always, and it was too loud. God, much too loud.

A hand pressed over his mouth, and he arched back, trying to gasp and getting two fingers in his mouth instead. Two more pressed between his cheeks, dry, rubbing roughly over his hole. His body kept trying to suck in air and cry out at the same time, and neither worked. He thrust forward, back against Sherlock's fingers, felt the outline of Sherlock's cock, half-hard, against his lower back.

He came in a rush against the window, and Sherlock pushed him forward and held him there, cheek and chest and hips pressed flush to the glass.

"Show's over," Sherlock murmured in his ear, voice so deep John could barely distinguish the words from the gravel of it.

He pulled off John's blindfold, and John looked across the street. There was no one at the window. Had there ever been?

His breath came heavy and hard. His knees felt rubbery, and he made no attempt to stand on his own. Sherlock held him a few seconds more and then lowered him to the ground.

"Stay there," Sherlock said. He swept the curtains closed and left the room.

John thought he might be gone for the night. Perhaps he'd got some brainstorm about a request on his forums. Perhaps he needed more silver nitrate. Perhaps he simply found the thought of watching John pick himself up and try to clean the wounds on his back boring.

Then again, he had told John to stay.

The thing was, John was naked, the room was cold, and he was bleeding. Almost certainly bleeding. Not that it wouldn't stop on its own. Still. There was a limit to the amount of time he could sit here.

Sherlock was back well before that time was up. Mere minutes, and he was bounding down the stairs and kneeling by John's side.

"Up," he said, and got an arm around John, avoiding the worst of the damage.

John sagged momentarily with relief and leaned against him. Sherlock hauled him upright and more or less dragged him up the stairs before John even came close to recovering himself.

"Face down," Sherlock said, with a wave in the direction of John's bed.

John did as he was told. That was how he'd got into this.

He couldn't quite picture Sherlock fucking him, but face down and naked on a bed did suggest that was in the cards. He wondered if Sherlock had lube. If he even knew it was necessary. If Sherlock actually had sex. Ever. With anyone. After a month and a half of this, that seemed like a thing he ought to know.

The bed dipped. Something wet and warm that was nothing like lube touched John's back. John nearly jumped straight out of his skin.

"Did that hurt?" Sherlock said.

John swallowed and frowned. "No," he decided.

"Then perhaps you could be still while I get on with this."

It was a flannel. Sherlock was cleaning his back. When John looked, cautiously, back over his shoulder, he could see spots of blood on Sherlock's shirt.

"What are you-- You don't have to--"

"Be quiet, John. Unless you need to tell me that I'm hurting you, don't speak."

John shut his mouth. He rested his cheek on the pillow, head turned toward the far wall. He could see the dresser that stood against it and the bare floor. He'd swept yesterday. His few bits and pieces were stored away in drawers. Everywhere he looked, bare surfaces. The bed was as tightly tucked and folded as when he'd left basic training.

This was his life without Sherlock, neatly contained in one room. And this was Sherlock in it, neatly and quietly cleaning John's wounds.

John couldn't relax into it. He wanted it too badly, felt guilty for wanting it, felt sure it would be taken from him any second. Sherlock couldn't want to be here, doing this, with nothing to read or even the telly to entertain him.

Sherlock's thumbnail dug into a welt across John's lower back, and John hissed, air cold against his clenched teeth.

"Stop that," Sherlock said. "Stop thinking."

"I can't."

Sherlock gripped the back of his neck and squeezed once. "You can. I require it of you. Lie there and stop thinking. Nothing else."

John could feel it creeping over him, but still: " _Why?"_

"Because I say so. Because you're my responsibility."

"M'not."

"You want to be."

That was more difficult to argue with.

Half the time, he found this _thing_ with Sherlock utterly terrifying, which was obviously the correct and logical emotional response.

The other half, he thought: _I could be happy like this forever._

"Stop thinking, John," Sherlock murmured, bending low over him. "You're not equipped."

That was it exactly. That was why. Because Sherlock _was_ so far above him, and it was stupid to pretend he wasn't, and it made John feel like this was _acceptable_ somehow. And he knew that wasn't how it was supposed to go, knew he was supposed to strive to be Sherlock's equal, his partner, his friend. He wasn't supposed to want this.

Even so, he felt himself relaxing, his brain switching off. His whole back ached with a sweet warmth, occasional sharper notes when Sherlock pressed a fraction too hard with the towel or rubbed in the antiseptic cream with too much force. John fell asleep before he was done.

**Author's Note:**

> [emungere.tumblr.com](http://emungere.tumblr.com)


End file.
